October 31 2025 -> April 06 2026

Pinacoteca Agnelli
Via Nizza 230
10126 Torino
Italy

Contact

T : +39 011 006 2713
info@pinacoteca-agnelli.it
https://www.pinacoteca-agnelli.it

From Friday, 31 October 2025, to Monday, 6 April 2026, Pinacoteca Agnelli presents the first retrospective in Italy dedicated to American artist Alice Neel (Merion Square, PA, 1900 – New York, NY, 1984), one of the most significant painters of the 20th century. Alice Neel. I Am the Century, curated by Sarah Cosulich and Pietro Rigolo, offers an insightful perspective on the artist’s work, emphasizing her pioneering gaze and her enduring interest in humanity in all its forms.

Neel was a revolutionary painter whose portraiture addressed, ahead of her time, fundamental human, social, and political issues. Her distinctive style, spontaneous yet precise, captured the character and inner life of her sitters, blending realism and surrealism with emphatic brushstrokes and a penetrating gaze. Over seven decades, she revealed the hidden folds of the human soul, influencing generations of artists.

Following a chronological framework, I Am the Century presents Neel as a “chronicler of life,” portraying the “human comedy.” Structured in six chapters interwoven with her biography, the exhibition highlights her intimate relationship with her subjects, exploring life stages from birth to death, adolescence to adulthood, the development of sexuality, social and political awareness, and the formation of personal and civic relationships.